Continuing the Certificate Series, where I have been describing and discussing each of the certificates in online teaching that are focused on the K-12 environment. The sixth one I wanted to discuss was the E-K-12 and Online Teaching Graduate Certificate Program at University of Wisconsin-Stout.

Michael, Thanks for letting your readers know about our program. I am the advisor for the E--Learning and Online Teaching Graduate Certificate program. I also wrote and teach two of our 5 classes, E-Learning for Educators and the E-Learning Practicum. Our graduate classes are offered by the University of Wisconsin Stout, School of Education. (We are not an extension program.)
I'm delighted to be able to talk with those interested in Learning Virtual Education. I was a public school teacher for 25 years before I went fully online. Working online has been a journey of discovery and a constant reminder of the joys of being a lifetime learner.
As you mention we do mix together all kinds of educators in our classes. A typical course will include Learning classroom teachers, some Learning online teachers and a good number of community college and university instructors. We also see health educators and some corporate trainers. Folks join us from around the country and the world. It's an eclectic mix of people who all share an interest in teaching online. Our goal is to help people become experienced professional online teachers as a way to expand and grow their careers.
To accommodate everyone's interests we have our materials highly differentiated. Learning teachers have the option of investigating the great resources from iNacol. They are encouraged to build useful quizzes and surveys and to craft discussion prompts as they practice facilitation skills. The topics for all projects are learner selected. We emphasize a practical hands on approach where participants can use what they learn and make right away. The great thing is to see a strong community of practice develop between all kinds of educators. Everyone is richer for it.
When it comes to the E-Learning Practicum, I customize each student's experience. I have managed some placements with Learning Virtual Schools. More often, Learning teachers take one of two options. Both involve teaching with one of our cooperating

Definition of blended learning
In a field with significant confusion around what K−12 blended learning is, the 40 programs converged under a simple, umbrella definition. First, in all of the blended programs, the students learned in a supervised brick-and-mortar location away from home at least some of the time. Second, in all of the cases, the students experienced online delivery with some control over the time, place, path, and/or pace. These two requirements, then, start to distinguish blended learning from other types of learning.

More cognitive and affective experiences lead to more thinking, more synaptic connections, and more learning. To this end, we have sought to leverage guesswork, repetition, stories, context, in-depth discussion, etc, to offer what Siemens might call ’frequency, diversity, and depth of exposure’ to the content. I’ve always maintained that learning is multi-dimensional, and deepened when you approach the subject from different angles.

we are connectors, or resources who point learners at key patterns or elements that help strengthen their connection to a piece of information (and emphasize the skill of being able to identify patterns).

Teachers do NOT provide digital access to notes and materials, and students are quizzed regularly about the content on which they have taken textual notes to see if this traditional “broadcast/spray model” of learning has been effective. (Or at least if the items included in the quiz have temporarily been stored in short term memory.) We MUST move beyond this traditional “banking model” of education, and I’m convinced the impetus for these changes is NOT coming and is not GOING to come from “inside the system” of traditional education.

How many of the teachers we work with on a daily basis understand the foundational elements of connectivisim? VERY, VERY few in my estimation. Why don’t they understand? Because they have not EXPERIENCED connectivisim. It is not enough to show or be told. One must EXPERIENCE the power of networked learning to understand it and appreciate its potentials.

participate and share the upcoming K-12 Online Conference which starts next week with our pre-conference keynote. The conference is free, it’s global, and the co-learners involved (that includes YOU as well as presenters and other participants) are all providing a rich context for experiential, connectivist K-12.

We can take, ourselves, an online blended course on a topic of interest so that we can personally EXPERIENCE and therefore appropriate / claim for ourselves / understand with depth some of the benefits as well as drawbacks of online learning contexts.

Blended learning, because it offers the possibility of appropriating best practices from BOTH face-to-face as well as online/virtual learning contexts, can provide greater opportunities for authentic learning and meaningful connections than any other educational modality.

The Technology Integration Matrix (TIM) illustrates how teachers can use technology to enhance learning for learning students. The TIM incorporates five interdependent characteristics of meaningful learning environments: active, constructive, goal directed (i.e., reflective), authentic, and collaborative (Jonassen, Howland, Moore, & Marra, 2003). The TIM associates five levels of technology integration (i.e., entry, adoption, adaptation, infusion, and transformation) with each of the five characteristics of meaningful learning environments. Together, the five levels of technology integration and the five characteristics of meaningful learning environments create a matrix of 25 cells as illustrated.

The Technology Integration Matrix (TIM) illustrates how teachers can use technology to enhance learning for learning students. The TIM incorporates five interdependent characteristics of meaningful learning environments: active, constructive, goal directed (i.e., reflective), authentic, and collaborative (Jonassen, Howland, Moore, & Marra, 2003). The TIM associates five levels of technology integration (i.e., entry, adoption, adaptation, infusion, and transformation) with each of the five characteristics of meaningful learning environments. Together, the five levels of technology integration and the five characteristics of meaningful learning environments create a matrix of 25 cells..."

Students can construct deep knowledge about a topic as they engage in building a multimedia project. If used effectively, a well designed student-driven learning experience can take the place of traditional methods of teaching content. Use of digital tools can provide students with flexible learning paths to meet their unique learning styles.

Classroom Technology Evolution Infographic
Advances in technology have definitely revolutionized the educational world-especially in recent decades. It seems that with each passing year, the traditional K-12 classroom is in the process of implementing a new form of technology. The Classroom Technology Evolution Infographic presents how technology used in the classroom has evolved.
http://eK-12infographics.com/classroom-technology-evolution-infographic/

A series of studies that have had a great deal of influence on the research and decision-making discussions concerning school library media programs have grown from the work of a team in Colorado—Keith Curry Lance, Marcia J. Rodney, and Christine Hamilton-Pennell (2000).

Recent school library impact studies have also identified, and generated some evidence about, potential "interventions" that could be studied. The questions might at first appear rather familiar: How much, and how, are achievement and learning improved when . . .
librarians collaborate more fully with other educators?
libraries are more flexibly scheduled?
administrators choose to support stronger library programs (in a specific way)?
library spending (for something specific) increases?

Perhaps the most strategic option, albeit a long-term one, is to infiltrate schools and colleges of education. Most school administrators and teachers never had to take a course, or even part of a course, that introduced them to what constitutes a high-quality school library program.

Three factors are working against successful advocacy for school libraries: (1) the age demographic of librarians, (2) the lack of institutionalization of librarianship in K–12 schools, and (3) the lack of support from educators due to their lack of education or training about libraries and good experiences with libraries and librarians.

These vacant positions are highly vulnerable to being downgraded or eliminated in these times of tight budgets, not merely because there is less money to go around, but because superintendents, principals, teachers, and other education decision-makers do not understand the role a school librarian can and should play.

If we want the school library to be regarded as a central player in fostering academic success, we must do whatever we can to ensure that school library research is not marginalized by other interests.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;

A great overview of Lance's research into the effectiveness of libraries. He answers the question: Do school libraries or librarians make a difference? His answer (A HUGE YES!) is back by 14 years of remarkable research. The point is proved. But this information remains unknown to many principals and superintendents.
Anyone interested in 21st century teaching and learning will find this interview fascinating.

Cultures of Thinking” (CoT) as places where a group’s collective as well as individual&nbsp;thinking is valued, visible, and actively promoted as part of the regular, day-to-day experience of all group&nbsp;members.

In 2005, we began&nbsp;our work at Bialik College by forming two focus groups of eight teachers with whom we worked&nbsp;intensively. These groups were all heterogeneous, including K-12 teachers of various subjects, representing&nbsp;a departure from traditional forms of professional development that target specific subject areas or levels.&nbsp;

Our research to date has shown that&nbsp;students recognize CoT classrooms as being more focused on thinking, learning, and understanding, and&nbsp;more likely to be collaborative in nature than those of teachers not in the project

Teachers in the project&nbsp;notice that as they work with CoT ideas, their classrooms shift in noticeable ways. Specifically, they find&nbsp;that they give thinking more time, discussion increases, and their questioning of students shifts toward&nbsp;asking students to elaborate on their thinking rather than testing them on their recall of facts and&nbsp;procedures.

over the course of a single school&nbsp;year, the average CoT classroom students’ growth and maturity, with respect to understanding thinking&nbsp;processes that they themselves use and control, increased by twice the normal rate one might expect by&nbsp;virtue of maturity alone (Ritchhart, Turner, Hadar, 2009).

Schools will focus more, for example, on providing well-kept facilities that students want to attend with great face-to-face support, high-quality meals, and a range of athletic, musical, and artistic programs and will leverage the Internet for instruction.

more disruptive—Flex, A La Carte, Enriched Virtual, and Individual Rotation—are positioned to transform the classroom model and become the engines of change over the longer term in high school and middle school, but likely not in elementary school.